KYRGYZSTAN Spring 2007
Alik* couldn't believe he was losing his son to cancer after almost losing his family to alcohol.
In the spring of 2004, Alik's son, Usen*, complained of pain in his side. At first, Alik and his wife, Mirgul, thought the boy had hurt himself rough-housing with brothers and friends.
But the pain persisted, and after several weeks and a succession of doctors, the parents traveled with their son from their Kyrgyzstan village to the capital, Bishkek.
The next day doctors at the National Centre of Oncology and Radiology performed exploratory surgery on the 12-year-old. In less than three hours, the doctors were explaining to Alik and Mirgul that they had found cancer in several of Usen's organs.
"One of the doctors told me they were sending tissue samples away for analysis, but there was little hope," Alik recalled. "The doctor said this was really a formality. He said that as soon as the test results were in, we should plan to take my son home to die. There was really nothing they could do."
That night, shaken from the news, Alik tried to sleep in a chair beside his son's bed.
"I could not rest so I prayed and prayed," he said. "Around 3 in the morning, I heard God ask me if I believed in eternal life. He then said, 'If Usen dies he will be with me in heaven. If he lives he will be with you. So why are you so worried?'
"He reminded me that my faith and hope was in Jesus," he says.
Yet it had not always been this way. In the early ‘90s, Alik knew a lot about grief and little about grace. He was someone to be feared by his family and his neighbors.
"People in my village were scared of me," he said. "I had fought a lot as a boy and in the army I learned how to fight even more. There was no peace in me and fighting was how I lived."
But street conquests won isolation, not admiration.
"I would drink and fight and feel so alone," he said. "The meaning of my life was alcohol. And when I would get drunk, my family fled."
Eventually, Mirgul had had enough. She filed for a divorce and soon won.
"I had no wife, no children and was hated by so many people in the village," he said. "I decided that I couldn't live in my hometown anymore so I left to work in Bishkek."
But the new location was hardly a fresh start. Feelings of isolation grew as days of sobriety shrank.
"I had relatives in Bishkek, but I didn't want to be with them. I only wanted to drink," he said.
Then one day a relative tried to tell Alik about Jesus. The relative explained that he was a follower of Jesus and his decision to become a Christian had brought him deep peace and joy. Alik knew only one response.
"I started kicking him," he recalled. "I was drunk so I beat and hit him, but my relative started praying right then that Jesus would save me. I laughed at him and left."
Days later Alik was no longer laughing. He kept playing the drunken scene with his relative over and over in his mind.
"My heart had always told me that no one wanted me. I was so lonely that I could not sleep at night. My relative's words had started something. There was this huge fight in my heart."
Alik went back to his relative and apologized. The relative invited him to a worship service at his church. "I went with him and there were all these women and just three men," he said. "I sat and listened. Some of the women started to cry when the man at the front spoke. But for me, nothing."
When the service ended, Alik tried to leave quickly, but several of the women, who knew Alik, hurried after him.
"There were a lot of words going around in my head," he said. "Then these women caught up with me and started asking, 'How was it? How was it? Was I saved?' I said 'no' and left.
"But I kept going over the things I had heard," he said. "I felt this struggle going on. It lasted for days and then I just prayed. I asked for forgiveness and asked Christ to come into my life.
"It's so hard to find the words, but it felt so good," he recalls. "For the first time in my life, I felt such peace."
This peace permeated Alik's whole life. He gave up drinking, smoking and returned to his village. He also found Mirgul, who was very skeptical about the changes.
For six months Alik lived in the same area of the village and worked to proved to Mirgul that Christ had in fact created a new life within him.
"She didn't believe me, but I told her that God had changed my life. I asked for her forgiveness and said that all the pain I had caused was because of how mean and sinful I was."
It took months of Alik praying and Mirgul watching, but eventually she not only accepted him back, but she too, several months later, gave her life to Christ.
These past spiritual markers came back to Alik as he sat next to his son in the hospital, he said. God reminded Alik of this path of faithfulness as he prayed and finally slept.
The long night ended when Mirgul and their other children arrived at the hospital ward in the early morning. The family was soon interrupted by one of the attending doctors.
"The doctor was there to tell me that things continued to look bad for Usen. I understood what he was saying, but I told him that I believed in God and he could heal my son if that was His will," he said.
Later that day Alik was joined by friends and a pastor from one of the churches in Bishkek.
"We gathered around Usen and began to pray," he said. "Usen woke up while we were praying and told me that someone had touched him on the side. He said, 'It felt so good.' "
The child declared that God had healed him. A few days later he left the hospital with his parents. At first, Usen's appearance did not match his confidence that he was healed, but slowly the boy's strength returned, Alik said.
"He was completely healed in 15 days," he said. "We even took him back to the hospital one month later and they ran all their tests and even an ultrasound.
"He was healed," he said. "When the doctor examined him, he said that he couldn't understand this. He said there is no answer for this.
"But I said there was a clear answer," recalls Alik. "God says that He is also a father who is love and gives good gifts."
That is a promise that Alik knows he will never lose.
*Names changed to protect believers.
Learn more about the peoples of the former Soviet Union
Kazakhs :: Kyrgyz :: Muslims of Moscow :: Tatar :: Turkmen :: Uzbe